List of NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Champions
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Men's Division I Basketball Championship, or NCAA Tournament, is a single-elimination tournament for men's college basketball teams in the United States. It determines the champion of Division I, the top level of play in the NCAA, and the media often describes the winner as the national champion of college basketball. The NCAA Tournament has been held annually since 1939, and its field has ranged from eight to sixty-five teams; in 2011, sixty-eight teams will take part in the tournament. The semifinals of the tournament are known as the Final Four and are held in a different city each year, along with the championship game; Indianapolis, the city where the NCAA is based, will host the Final Four every five years until 2040. Since 1952, each winning university has received a rectangular, gold-plated trophy made of wood; in previous years, a silver cup was awarded to the champion. The first NCAA Tournament, was organized by the National Association of Basketball Coaches. Oregon won the inaugural tournament, defeating Ohio State 46–33 in the first championship game. After the second tournament in 1940, control of the event was transferred to the NCAA. In the early years of the tournament, it was considered less important than the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), a New York City-based event. Teams were able to compete in both events in the same year, and three that did so—Utah in 1940, Kentucky in 1949, and City College of New York (CCNY) in 1950—won the NCAA Tournament.2008 ESPN Sports Almanac, p. 314. The 1949–50 CCNY team won both tournaments, and is the only college basketball team to accomplish this feat. By the 1960s, the NCAA Tournament became the more prestigious of the two events, and in 1971 the NCAA barred universities from playing in other tournaments, such as the NIT, if they were invited to the NCAA Tournament. The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has been the most successful college in the NCAA Tournament, winning 11 national titles. Ten of those championships came during a 12-year stretch from 1964 to 1975. UCLA also holds the record for the most consecutive championships, winning seven in a row from 1967 to 1973. Kentucky has the second-most titles, with seven, and Indiana and North Carolina follow with five championships each. Duke, a four-time NCAA Tournament winner, is the most recent champion, having defeated Butler in the final of the 2010 tournament. Among head coaches, John Wooden is the all-time leader with 10 championships; he coached UCLA during their period of success in the 1960s and 1970s. Duke's Mike Krzyzewski and Kentucky's Adolph Rupp are tied for the second-most titles among head coaches with four apiece. Table key Winners Multiple champions See also *NCAA Basketball Tournament Most Outstanding Player Notes * The result was later stricken from the NCAA record books after it was discovered that the team had committed a rules violation. References ;General * ;Specific Category:NCAA Division I Men's Basketball tournaments